CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.

Moonbows: Colors of the Night

Just as the sun illuminates rainbows during the day, reflected sunlight from the moon can reveal moonbows and moon halos at night. The most favorable time for a moonbow to appear is during a rain shower opposite a full or very bright moon. The night sky needs to be very dark, and moonbow watchers should stand with their backs to the moon. The colors of the moonbow will be dim pastels, in contrast to the vibrant hues of a daytime rainbow.

A moon halo, on the other hand, is visible near the moon itself as a result of moonlight scattered through ice crystals in very high clouds. The colors of a moon halo tend to be brigher than a moonbow.

The headlights of a car can create a phenomenon called a fog bow as they illuminate water vapor during misty conditions. Christian Fenn reported "Fogbows are more feebly colored than their Sun illuminated counterparts (rainbows) and usually appear whitish to the unaided eye."

The rainbow appears throughout world mythology as a symbolic bridge between the divine and the mundane. Moonbows remind us that even on the darkest night of the soul, there is a glimmer of promise, however faint.